Is This Really My Job?

I had to blog today because today was my first day of building beds as a Sweet Sleep employee. Woo hoo! I came on this trip to pretty much be in charge of the bed building part of it, and today I ended up pretty much in charge of everything since Jen was gone allllllll day long hunting down a Rurac with Emily and СJ (see Emily’s blog below for the play-by-play on that little adventure). I don’t mean to sound like I’m the great bed building expert and I spent the day telling everyone what to do. We have a great team and they don’t need that from me. But still, it was exciting for me to be left on my own as the guy from Sweet Sleep and to really start to feel like this is what I do. Overall, we had a really good day of building beds and I know that with this team, the rest will go smoothly as well.

I also met three very sweet teenage girls named Alina, Elena, and Vica. They helped us build the beds for their room and proudly showed me things their sponsors had sent them. I’ve said to may people before that I feel very strongly that men need to come on these trips and provide, at least for a week, the kind of male influence and guidance that they so rarely get in their lives. I believe this is true for both the boys and the girls, and today I was reminded of that as I spent time with Alina, Elena, and Vica. So many of the girls here end up tricked or trapped into sex trafficking and they need to know that a man can and should love and respect them for who they are, not for what they can do with their bodies. I hope to be able to impart at least some of that to them this week.

That’s it for me tonight. And as always, I want to thank D’Ann and my boys for supporting me in this work. I know it’s hard on all of you for me to be away, and couldn’t do this without you.

Stuart